Exiles on Main Street

Huddled masses find a home in authors extraordinary America

Cristina Garcia -- whose acclaimed new novel, A Handbook to Luck, tells the tale of three political exiles from the ravaged countries of Iran, El Salvador, and Cuba -- probes seldom-told stories of an extraordinary America because she is, herself, an extraordinary American. Her family fled Castros Cuba in 1961, and her cultural roots run deep in life and in her fiction. Says Garcia, I see myself as complicating the notion of what it means to be Cuban or Cuban-American and resisting the political and cultural straitjacket that a handful of exiles would put us in.

And what does the outspoken author say about the New Cuban Order under Raul Castro? I'd like to quote my father on this, who said, Mismo perro, collar diferente. This means, Same dog, different collar. I don't anticipate any big changes in Cuba until the Cubans themselves have a say in their destiny.